that every parent of a secondary school child should sit in on a lesson

[thekidsrule]

hi,my son has been disrupting a class he attends at secondary school (boys)

im feed up to the back teeth of his attitude regarding his behaviour

im also getting phone calls about this by the teacher,anyway as a last resort i asked the teacher if i could sit in on this lesson,maybe embarrass him,realise i mean buisness,sure you get the drift

anyway teacher was more than happy so i sat in OMG what a shambles

1/4 of the class would not sit down for the first 10mins of lesson
continuous calling out,throwing pens,offensive language,basically a shambles

one boy was sent out for good but there was still a huge amount of dissruption,my son was better behaved but im under no illussion he acts the same when im not there

there was a reward system going,lots of incentives but nothing made any difference

there was some students that wanted to learn,but how can they learn with so much going on

ages 13yrs

i liked the teacher and really felt for her,what a hard job

AIBU t think that alot of parents dont really realise what is going on in the classroom and maybe every parent attended one lesson it would open there eyes,it has mine

Depends on the subject...

Sadly these senarios are all too familiar to me. I too would shudder LeQueen. In fact, if you read the behaviour forum on the TES it is enough to make you weep. These so called 'great' comps are schools of two halves - the accelerated top sets and the at worst rude/uncivilised and at best lethargic lower sets.

yes that is true, there are still a few subjects that are a shortage. I suspect there are some schools that will always struggle to get staff as well.

LeQueen that is awful, I am not surprised you left and I am no suprised it made you shudder. However it is not the norm.

The behaviour forums on the TES are not the norm either. As with any forum it is populated by people in extreme situations. I would hardly go into the TES behaviour section and start posting about the fact that my classes have behaved all day.

That's dreadful, Le Queen

The thing is Molly that teachers are routinely putting up with lower level disruption. By that I mean getting out of seats, throwing items round the room, refusal to work, refusal to remove coats, etc. Then those pupils often refuse to attend detentions or comply with other sanctions.

I think that's fairly commonplace and there are too many weak HTs who allow such behaviour to go unpunished.

By the time you qualify Molly it's too late. There are many teachers fleeing the profession and plenty on long term sick.

And nobody should be under illusion this is only 'rough' schools
Our local is considered uber-posh (we slipped under a radar, damn those catchments eh? ) and yet as the Acting Head put it 'I love working wit the kids here; it's the aprents that drive me nuts'- becuase nobody's child is ever naughty, or a problem: if the child kicks off the teacher gets the parental blame. If the child is average the teachers gets the blame. Etc, you get the picture.

It can be turned around though; a friend recently subbied at the Primary feeder for the comp my ds1 has an SN Base place at; kids were on teh roof ffs- teachers not batting an eyelid; she said she would send a child to the Head for pinching and the Head told her to 'show more love'. Comp turns them around though with strict rules (even the coats have to match), rewards (they ahve a climbing wall that the kids can earn time on)- and the behaviour there is amazing.

I have taught in a few schools that match that description, but they were known to be very rough schools. I am not trying to dismiss that, every school out of control is one too many.

As a TA you will probably be in the most difficult classes. I have a bottom set who are quite difficult although it doesn't take me ten minutes to get them to sit down. They just like to moan if I make them work hard and it is full of boys who are naturally loud and boisterous. They utilise my classroom management skills, whilst my other classes do not really.

I know I come from a big city stance and schools of 2,000+ are not uncommon; when you look at "comprehensives" of thats size - 10 forms per year group, plus a sizeable 6th form ...... you take in 300+ kids per year group. Does everyone really expect they they not reflect every social strata and problem? from the proactive parents to the drug addicts, , to the mental health issues to the physically/sexually/mentally abused, to those groomed for arranged marriages/ to those expected to forsake education and get out ther and work/to those with educational needs?

Sometimes I think people live in a bubble

I agree that classroom management skills of the highest order may make a difference but the saddest thing is the default behavioural stance of many of these students .

I do think there is a link between schools that blame teachers for the poor behaviour of students and poor behaviour generally. This can often lead to teachers hiding the poor behaviour,in fear of being blamed, which just makes it worse.

Strong leadership is key and teachers need to know that if students refuse to follow instructions the management would back them up. Our students are not allowed to wear coats in buildings, however if I asked a student to take a coat off in class and they refused they would be removed from my lesson and face up to 2 hours of detentions. Students know this, so apart from a very very small number they comply.

Even the grammars and private schools have this low level disruption, kids kicking off about their test results like it is the teachers fault, answering back, refusing to carry out reasonable requests.
We seem to have created a monster in recent years.

I do think there is a link between schools that blame teachers for the poor behaviour of students and poor behaviour generally

Strong leadership is key and teachers need to know that if students refuse to follow instructions the management would back them up

Absolutely agree, Molly

"thats a bit harsh,influenced by rough kids,how do you know this is the case"

Yes - maybe a bit harsh. She's in tops sets for everything and there's rarely outright chaos in her classes. They have very good teachers there. But she's surrounded by kids who have 'attitude' in spades. There's a problem with gang culture locally and many of the kids are very tough and outspoken to adults. DD has picked up that it's possible to challenge adults in class, and get away with it, as long as you're achieving. The school is very results driven. They'd be seriously reluctant to chuck out any kids like my dd who they can see achieving a good clutch of GSCE's.

OP, good on you - this is something I have threatened my DS1 with. The threat worked VERY well

alistron,maybe were going to set a trend,watch out kids the mothers are coming to a school near you soon,lol

A parent suggested this for her DS this week. I think I might encourage her, sounds like your experience was really helpful.

I have one bottom set of 15 boys, all with SEN an behavioural issues, and 3 lovely (but also SEN) girls. I am a good teacher, but this class are really testing me. I've spoken to most of the parents, who are mostly deluded into thinking their boys are just as pleasant at school as they are at home, and that if they occasionally aren't, it must be the influence of the others. It is very rare that a parent takes any responsibility for poor behaviour and I applaud you OP. I really hope this changes things for your son, and for the class generally.

I'm afraid most parents of comprehensive school pupils really don't have a clue what goes on in classrooms. Except in the very top sets, the acceptance of low-level disruption and the sheer NOISE our kids are expected to work in are totally mind-boggling for anyone who left school 25+ years ago.

DS (year 11) has Aspergers. We have spent an awful lot of time up at the school over the last 3 years, and get to mooch around the corridors and peer through classroom windows during lesson time whilst waiting for busy staff. DS has been badly bullied and physically attacked both in school and on the way home on numerous occasions, but the perpetrators have only ever been given detentions as punishment. This is the highest-achieving and most over-subscribed state secondary school in the county BTW, with an "Outstanding" rating from Ofsted last year. And it ranked 15th on the "non-selective state schools getting kids into Oxbridge" league table.

Some of his teachers can't even prevent him from being tormented in the classroom. One of them told us he couldnt punish some bullies for a particularly nasty and blatant incident (which resulted in his GCSE Chemistry coursework being destroyed) because DS told them to "fuck off and just leave him alone" in class, so was equally culpable. This is a child who was given 6 grade 1s (excellent) and 3 grade 2s (very good) for behaviour and attitude to learning in last week's school report. Not exactly a hell-raiser or troublemaker. He spends his break-times hiding in the library and is too frightened to go into town by himself at the weekend is case he runs into kids from school.

Take a look at some af the aggression,arragance, bigotry,snobbery, selfishness, unkindness and down right nastiness on some of the threads on Mumsnet, and you can see where some of these kids are geting it from....

That is awful lapsed. You are totally right of course about parents not knowing

Where is the pro State education brigade tonight I wonder? I know Heswell said that the same sort of thing goes on in Grammars and Independent Schools too, Grammars maybe but Independents - I doubt it!

I know parents who have no idea how rude and low-level disruptive their DCs are. I think they'd be shocked if they were to see, and would no longer blame the teacher.

So those other kids are "rough kids" and your daughter's just been swept along with it all? I'm afraid that they all influence each other, it's not "my kid" and "those rough kids" - if your kid behaves like disgrace in school, then they are themselves a rough kid. I sympathise but let's not make out like some children are inherently bad and my child is just being pressured by them.

At the independent my daughter attending for prep a little girl put her mobile phone over the cubical door and filmed my child on the toilet, then sent the video to all her pals. The mother is a dentist, the father a GP. This caused a fair amount of disruption in the lesson I can tell you.
The schools hands are tied across the board because the parents of this generation simply do not know what to do with them IMO.
Nobody wants to hit children to control them but equally I would say 90% of parents do not have the tools to bring their children up to behave, the professionals, the teachers do have the tools but then don't have the parents support.
I dispair, my children are not angels but I do follow through with punishments and hope for the best.